Allup Silica Ltd (ASX:APS) has delivered premium, low-iron, high-grade silica during metallurgical test-work on material from its Sparkler Silica Exploration Project in WA.
The silica stock recently tweaked its process circuit in a bid to improve overall silica recovery and decrease iron oxide impurities, which can lower the quality and value of silica sand materials.
Positively, Allup’s renewed process averaged a modest 84 parts per million (ppm) iron oxide across all test results — well below the
Combined with a silicon dioxide grade of 99.8%, Allup is primed to generate silica sands for photovoltaic (PV) applications — one of the company’s primary target markets.
“We are on track”
Allup took four samples from Sparkler and processed them at the Nagrom facility in Perth.
From here, Battery Limits Metallurgical Consultants reviewed the results and prepared its findings in an independent metallurgical report.
Commenting on the findings, Allup Silica chair Andrew Haythorpe said: “The results from the improvements we are making to the process circuit are very encouraging and indicate that we do have the right projects and the high purity silica sands to start with.
“Being able to achieve the high purity specs required for the manufacture of PV cells means we are on track, and we look forward to being able to supply samples to potential customers as we progress to development on our Sparkler Project.”
On the calendar
Allup’s test-work continues, designed to further refine its proposed process circuit methodology.
It’s hoped this will conquer the ultimate goal: delivering a consistent iron grade at less than 100 ppm across all of the company’s exploration projects.
As such, the next work program has multiple objectives:
- produce a more consistent, low-impurity product;
- investigate the potential to reduce capital and operating costs;
- enable consistent quality assurance and control; and
- achieve a methodology that could support an increase in the depth of sand to be mined, which may increase the reserve estimates.
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